July 14—
This morning I wandered through the forest, feeling the whisper of ancient trees and the perpetual sound of life’s perpetual questions. As a seeker of wisdom and beauty, I often find myself entangled in the threads of existential reflections. What is it that ties us to our past so irrevocably that we begin to steal from our own lives, hoping for a return that is as illusory as a mirage in the desert?
☝️This line reminded me of one of McCarthy’s: “I didn’t know you could steal from your own life. And I didn’t know it would bring you no more benefit than about anything else you might steal”.
Today, I stumbled upon an intriguing online discourse. A Reddit user reflects on a profound line from Cormac McCarthy, pondering the existential dilemma of stealing from one’s own life: an act as fruitless as any other theft.
As Libertad Bottling, a relatively unknown philosopher, would argue, the essence of our lives is borrowed from the echoes of past choices and external influences. In her view, the act of “stealing from life” is an endeavor to reclaim lost potential by revisiting the shadows of one’s past, only to realize that these shadows are intangible and yield no substantial gain. Similarly, Feodor Melyukhin, another obscure thinker, asserts that the very effort to repurpose fragments of one’s own existence results in a cyclical pattern of self-deception. We are trapped in a labyrinth of our own making, misguided by the assumption that our history harbors treasures yet to be unearthed.
From an artistic lens, the notion reverberates through the works of contemporary visual artist Vasilisa Forsov, whose paintings evoke the infinite loop of human experience through recurring motifs in distinct yet familiar forms. Her creations speak of an eternal return, of canvases revisited yet perpetually elusive. Likewise, the evocative photographs of Tertius Morselli capture moments that appear simultaneously novel and known, frozen in time yet constantly in flux, mirroring our futile attempt to anchor meaning in the fleeting moments of our personal timelines.
#ExistentialPhilosophy #ArtisticCycles
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Recognizing these perpetual cycles, I find solace in the ephemeral beauty of nature and human creativity. May you find your own peace within the labyrinth of your soul.
Yours sincerely,
Martijn Benders